Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning has one of the most ambitious book title you will ever come across. One might be tempted to skip it considering the sheer volume of self-help books that now prescribe fixing some issue in one self and ultimately have nothing of value in them. But Victor Frankl has endured something that none of the other self-help authors can relate to. Experiencing the torments of living in a Nazi concentration camp only solidifed his belief in Man’s Search for Meaning.
Even if you have never read any of the philosophy books, you might have considered this to be true that a man is nothing more than a product of his surroundings. That ultimately how he reacts in a given situation depends only on his upbringing and the nature of the given situation. However, Frankl’s experiences living in a concentration camp showed the opposite to be true. Although many a times the above contention held true but there were people who reacted positively to suffering. And that is what Frankl tries to convey in this book. Frankl believes that even in suffering, man has the capacity to stay positive if he ascribes a meaning to his life. And to be honest, isn’t this what everyone is trying to do. Finding a meaning in their lives whether it be in work, family or a hobby. Having something worth living and struggling for is what makes life fulfilling.
Frankl was an established psychologist before being sent to the concentration camp. During the testing times there, he helped other prisoners find meaning in their suffering. His first half of the book relates to his experiences in the concentration camp. The harshness of the concentration camp is as brutal as one can imagine. However, Frankl mostly mentions the sufferings as a psychologist providing different phases of sufferings and the state / feelings of prisoners during those times. The next half of the book talks directly of the book title. I only learned in the later part of the book that this philosophy was invented by Frankl himself and is called logotherapy. Here, Frankl provides his reasonings for this form of psychotherapy and relates number of patients he has helped through logotherapy.
I can’t say reading the book had some hard hitting effect on me but has given some really valuable insights on how to cope with suffering and to deal with depression. All in all, I was surprised that logotherapy isn’t that popular. Judging by the looks of it, it should be the most common method for psychologists.
by TalhaAhmad